Pagliacci
by TheyCallMeJub
Summary: After having been locked away in Manehattan's asylum for the criminally insane for five long years, the big city's very own Clown Princess of Crime is being released. But when she returns to the mean streets of her beloved cesspool, The Prankster comes back to find her territories divided, her cash reserves empty, and her city being run by crime lords who have grown soft.
1. Chapter 1

**Pagliacci**

**by ****theycallmejub**

_Chapter One_

Blitzkrieg leaned back in his wooden seat, puffed his cigar and blew a ring of smoke, adding to the haze that filled the dive bar. He was a pegasus stallion of great wealth and high-class, but he smoked cheap cigars and drank cheap liquor purchased at cheap bars. He had money but allowed himself few luxuries. Money was power, but in his youth he had learned that there was no power in luxury. Luxury was a wicked temptress, always taunting, teasing, promising, but never willing to deliver in the end. She was a sly voluptuary, a competent manipulator, and she had used her seductive wiles to lead many of Blitzkrieg's friends and family astray. As a colt he had watched his best friend tear himself to pieces in pursuit of material wealth, power, and prestige. He had witnessed his first love drown in excess, suffocated beneath a flood of pearls and diamonds and brocade and fine cuisine.

However, those dark days were long behind him now. Blitzkrieg was older. Wiser. More experienced. He carried with him all the mistakes of his many years, as well as the memories of those fatal missteps made by the friends and lovers whom he'd watched this city devour. Manehattan was a hungry beast of a city, one that fed on feeding. Blitzkrieg had learned long ago that the only way to starve her was to starve himself.

A waitress, a dainty stick figure of a mare, approached the table where Blitzkrieg sat with Pinstripe, a zebra of unassuming stature dressed in an expensive suit. The mare set a tray of drinks on the table and asked in a squeaky voice if the pegasus or his friend would like anything else. Blitzkrieg nodded personably and dismissed her with a regal wave of his hoof. Then he lifted a glass to his nose and sniffed, grinning inwardly as he inhaled the foul aroma of cheap whiskey. Pinstripe lifted a mug of alcoholic cider and sipped, wrinkling his nose as the bitter drink washed over his tongue and trickled down his throat.

Blitzkrieg couldn't help but laugh when he saw the look of disgust invade his friend's expression. He was an excellent laugher. Time had taught him the proper technique, and now that he was a maven of the chortle, a master of the guffaw, a connoisseur of the snicker and the giggle, Blitzkrieg could find the humor in most anything.

"I am always telling you the cider is no good here," he said, his chuckles shaking his sizable girth. "But you are never listening, comrade. Is trouble with youth these days. Never listening." His voice was an enchanting guttural—low and gruff and yet somehow musical, like an expertly played bass drum. His rich Stalliongrad accent only added to this rhythmic quality.

Blitzkrieg was born in Maneich, raised in Stalliongrad, and currently living in Manehattan—all of which made him an oddity in Pinstripe's eyes. Though Pinstripe was a zebra, he had never seen his homeland. He had lived his entire life in Manehattan, and like most Manehattanites, he rarely met ponies as diversely cultured as Blitzkrieg. Manehattan was a bubble. Ponies were born in Manehattan, they were raised in Manehattan, they died in Manehattan—such was the fate of nearly all who called the lively east coast city their home. Most Manehattanites lived their entire lives without seeing the splendor of the capital Canterlot, the captivating beauty of Unicorn Range, the pure crystal blue of the mountains bordering the Frozen North. Their world was small and grey and pitiless, and their attitudes and ambitions reflected this bleak backdrop.

But Blitzkrieg was different. He existed in the foreground, very much a part of the big picture, but ahead of it, drawing the eye away from what lurked behind.

Pinstripe took a second sip of his drink, then a third, slowly growing used to the unpleasant taste. He did this every time he went out drinking with Blitzkrieg, which used to be quite often before the old pegasus was appointed head of the Shadowbolts. Pinstripe hated cheap drinks. He hated all cheap things—and his feelings about the burly leaf-green stallion sitting across from him were directly tied to his feelings about cheap things.

"Why you always dragging me to these lousy dives, Kriegy?" asked the zebra, setting his mug on the table. It was a question posed to the stallion many times by many ponies. "We got cash enough to buy this place five times over."

"_We_ do, do we?" answered Krieg, wearing an amused expression. He didn't laugh in Pinstripe's face, but he might as well have. Anger flashed behind the zebra's eyes, there and gone before Krieg could notice it.

"Hardy har har," replied Pinstripe. He slipped a hoof inside his overcoat and produced a pack of cigarettes. Waving, he flagged down a unicorn waitress and asked her for a light. The waitress replied graciously. Her horn ignited and a moment later so did the end of Pinstripe's cigarette. He took a grateful puff, thanked her with a nod, then returned his attention to Krieg.

The stallion's expression was still brimming with unconcealed amusement.

"Look, the point I'm trying to make is, we are made equines, are we not?" Pinstripe insisted. Krieg shook his head in a way that suggested he had endured this line of discourse from the young upstart before. Perhaps many times before. "Come on Kriegy don't give me that look. Am I lying? If I'm lying then say so and I'll drop the whole thing right now."

"You are having point, comrade," Blitzkrieg admitted hesitantly.

"You see that, I got a point," Pinstripe returned, leaning forward eagerly. "We're big fish now that the old boss is behind bars. We got no business swimming around with these guppies anymore."

Blitzkrieg crossed his forelegs about his chest, grinning, his cigar hanging from the corner of his mouth. "Guppies…" he echoed thoughtfully, rolling the word on his tongue as if savoring its flavor. "Guppies, you say? And yet when I look around, I am seeing no guppies. I am seeing sharks. Sharks swimming through dangerous waters."

"What, you mean the ponies in this joint?" Pinstripe took a long drag and exhaled through his nose, pushing two jets of smoke from his nostrils. "Nickel-and-dime pushers and two-bit hustlers. These ponies are chumps. Us—we're rockstars! We should be sipping champagne with guys like Fancy Pants and eating out Wonderbolts at them big celebrity parties they're always throwing uptown."

Krieg's grin waned but didn't fade completely. He took a small puff of his cigar and leaned forward as well, resting his forelegs on the worn hardwood. "Allow me to pose question, comrade," he said, prompting Pinstripe to roll his stony eyes. "Tell me, have you ever fallen asleep on bed of nails?"

"What kinda question is that? No, I ain't never fallen asleep on no bed of nails. What does that have to do with anything?"

Pinstripe took a long chug from his mug, and Krieg watched the muscles in the zebra's neck flex as Pinstripe finished off the cider in three long, arduous swallows. Then a loud huff left Pinstripe's throat and he set the mug back on the table. When he spoke again his tone was decidedly more cross. "This is why the uptown bosses and even those cross-dressing hooligans out west don't respect us. Because of you, Kriegy. Because you don't make no damn sense. You stopped making sense years ago."

"What?" The laugh-lines in Blitzkrieg's brow furrowed and deepened as the full strength of his previous grin reclaimed his wrinkled face. "I am making perfect sense. Bed of nails. Is…how you say…figurative. Is simple metaphor. When you are understanding bed of nails, then you will know why I drink piss sold at hole-in-wall dive bar."

"Sounds like more of your useless 'back-in-old-country' wisdom to me," answered Pinstripe. "Now let me ask you a question: what's the point in being an outlaw if you're not gonna live like one? If I wanted to rub shoulders with losers in a dump like this, I'd have gotten a job. I'm an _earner_, Kriegy, and so are you. We've earned money. We've earned power. But no respect. These uptowners—they're laughing at us. They're laughing at _me_." There was something very bitter in that last proclamation. Something very dangerous.

"No, _I_ am laughing at you, comrade. Uptown bosses, they are not even knowing your name," said Krieg, puffing his cigar and waving dismissively, as if trying to shoo away Pinstripe's haughty attitude. "You drive yourself mad over these things, and for what? For fame? Why are you all the time wanting fame? Fame is luxury, comrade. It will only make you soft—and you are soft enough in head already."

Pinstripe smothered the glowing end of his cigarette in the ashtray on the table. He dusted a speck of ash from his suit-coat and straightened his tie, but didn't respond to Blitzkrieg's dig. Instead, he settled into his seat and seethed in silence.

He could be so childish, thought Krieg. So arrogant, impertinent, self-important—the list of his lesser personality traits went on and on. But worst of all in Blitzkrieg's eyes, Pinstripe was ungrateful for all his surrogate father had done for him.

But looking at the young zebra now, full to bursting with anger and self-loathing, Krieg wondered if he had done enough. It made his heart ache to see his friend in such pain, even if much of that pain was self-inflicted. The old stallion reached forward and placed a reassuring hoof on Pinstripe's shoulder. "Pinstripe," he said with uncharacteristic severity. "You are like son to me. I am proud of you and I respect you deeply. I always have. Why is this not enough?"

Pinstripe started to respond with a flippant comment, but thought better of it. Instead, he relaxed and let his dark countenance brighten, not because he accepted the old stallion's sentiment, but because he finally felt he had some semblance of an answer to his original question. Blitzkrieg was able to live as humbly as he did because he was not from where Pinstripe was from. That was it. That was the reason. Pinstripe realized it must be as simple as that when he heard Krieg use the word 'enough.' It was a word no criminal born in Manehattan would ever utter. In Manehattan there was more and there was less, but there was never enough.

Pinstripe wanted more. More money. More power. More respect. And he would have it. If he had to burn this city the ground, he would have it.

"Thanks, Kriegy, that's a nice sentiment. Real greeting card type stuff," said the zebra, making no attempt to mask his sardonic tone. "Now you gonna buy me another drink, or are we gonna braid each other's tails and talk about our feelings?"

Krieg's laugh was short and heavy, and when it passed he snuffed his cigar in the tray beside his glass. "I am not drunk enough to braid your tail, comrade. Not yet." Smiling easily again, he flagged down a waitress and ordered more disgusting liquor that he and his companion choked down earnestly. It was still early, only a little after nine, and Krieg had not seen his surrogate son in nearly two years. They had much catching up to do before the night aged and business beckoned them from their reunion.

Blitzkrieg struck up a conversation about nothing in particular; sports, mares, work—which was apparently going very well. As he spoke, a new, juvescent energy invaded his tone that grated on Pinstripe's already raw nerves. Pinstripe hated listening to the old fool prattle on, but what could he do? With the old boss behind bars, Blitzkrieg was head of the Shadowbolts and that meant, among other things, that the he had to be indulged. Pinstripe may have disagreed with Krieg, and he may have spoken out against him at times, but he knew better than to overstep his boundaries. It was true that Krieg thought of him as a son, but even the kindest fathers punish their children for misbehaving. Pinstripe had seen Krieg punish many ponies, and what the old stallion lacked in creativity he made up for with unapologetic ruthlessness. There was a mad prince lurking behind Blitzkrieg's kingly veneer, a shadow of his wild youth that Pinstripe had learned to be wary of.

But Krieg was old now and full of stories, which he told with impressive verve over the plentiful drinks. If Pinstripe was merely indulging him, feigning interest, nodding and smiling when the conversation called for it, Blitzkrieg either didn't notice or didn't mind. Like any loving father, he was too swept up in the return of his long missed prodigal son to give other things much thought. As he and his son spoke, he couldn't help but notice how much the young zebra had grown. He looked so dashing in his jet-black suitcoat, so dapper in his sensible dress shirt and cropped red tie. Pinstripe still wore his mane in a mohawk, an upstart's haircut to Krieg's decidedly conservative eye, but at least he kept it trimmed at a decent length, making it somewhat presentable. He didn't like the stud earrings or lip piercings Pinstripe had taken to wearing, but Krieg equated this disagreement in taste to a simple difference in age. Often times, he had come to learn, the wedges driven between parent and child are simply the inevitable divides that separate one generation from another. Taste in music. Taste in clothing. In mares. The lifestyles of the young and the old always differed. However, lately Krieg had begun to notice a widening in this natural divide. Every year the old seemed to grow older and the young younger, wilder, more reckless in pursuit of their tireless ambitions.

They talked for nearly three hours. During this span of time they were visited, sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes longer, by friends and business associates who stopped in for drinks.

They chatted briefly with Wisp, a snow-white unicorn dressed in an equally snow-white suit and matching fedora hat. The unicorn ordered a beer and complained about the increased police presence in Manehattan's downtown areas. By his own proclamation, every city block east of Mustang Avenue and south of Clydesdale Boulevard was currently overrun with cops; a proclamation that both Blitzkrieg and Pinstripe couldn't help but laugh at. Downtown was no more 'overrun' with cops than Cloudsdale was overrun with earth ponies. Recently there had been a crack down on prostitution in the red light district—that much was true—but the MPD always used the apprehension of minor pimps to give the press something positive to say about the department whenever crime rates climbed especially high. In this case, more cops popping up in the red light district was a sign that Manehattan's finest were up to their necks in robberies, mob hits, gang wars, and drug epidemics. In other words—business was booming.

Wisp wasn't the least bit amused by their laughter. "I wouldn't expect a couple of leg-breakers like you to understand," he said in his cool, detached way.

Wisp was no leg-breaker like Krieg or Pinstripe. He was an experienced kidnapper who lent his services to a few pony trafficking rings that operated out of the red light district, as well as one very large one that was run by the Daughters of Discord way up in Discord's Kitchen. He had also lent his services to Blitzkrieg on several occasions as well. He was good at making ponies disappear. Wisp had done several favors for the Shadowbolts, and nopony knew where the bodies were buried but him. Krieg had always known Wisp to be a careful pony, though sometimes to a fault.

Wisp uttered one last word of warning to Krieg and his companion before finishing his beer and leaving the bar. He exited through the front door, though he might as well have floated from the ground and phased through the ceiling for all the noise he made, or rather didn't make, as he departed.

Later in the night a sturdy earth mare with a muscular build stopped by their table. One of her eyes was sharp, its color the same rich lavender as her cropped mane, while the other was dull, grey, and sightless. Blitzkrieg welcomed her to join his table amiably, addressing her by her nickname, Twenty.

Twenty tried ordering some drink the waitress had never heard of, and when that didn't work she settled for whiskey.

Pinstripe didn't know who Twenty was, nor did he have any interest in learning more about her. The feeling was not mutual. The brawny earth mare fixed her one good eye on him and flirted with him for the entirety of her stay, which thankfully wasn't very long.

When she departed, Blitzkrieg gave Pinstripe a knowing nudge, prompting a wry chuckle and an eye roll from the young zebra.

"What?" said Krieg, his voice ringing with exaggerated surprise. "Twenty is nice filly from old country. Is sturdy filly. Built like ox."

"Is that supposed to be selling point?" laughed Pinstripe, earning a playful shove from his surrogate father.

More ponies came and went as the night aged. Whether criminal or law-abiding citizen, most everypony in downtown Manehattan knew Blitzkrieg, though few would have been able to pick Pinstripe out of a crowd. Despite having known each other for years, the old pegasus and the young zebra were rarely seen in public together—and when they were, both made sure to downplay the closeness of their relationship. It was no secret that Krieg had essentially adopted Pinstripe, but in the gang life zebras were not respected as full equals to their pony counterparts. Racial politics in Manehattan were treacherous waters to navigate, even in the criminal underworld. In summation, the heir to the infamous Shadowbolts, the nearly all pegasus gang that ran the biggest extortion racket in the city, couldn't be a zebra. The backlash from within the gang would be overwhelming, enough to cause a schism in their ranks that might lead to the gang dissolving completely.

However, it was very likely that none of that would matter after tonight. All the old politics were doomed to become moot points. All the infrastructure and safeguards Krieg had spent the last five years erecting and installing were about to fly apart like so much glass shattered by a wrecking ball. _She_ was being released tonight. Everything was destined to become undone. It was happening already. Krieg could feel it in his gut. He could hear it. Celestia's archangels were blowing their horns, and the walls were tumbling down.

Blitzkrieg glanced at his watch and saw that it was nearly midnight. He had enjoyed this night out with his son, and though the arrogant and moody Pinstripe would never admit it, he had enjoyed himself as well. But the hour for pleasantries was over now. It was time. Solemnly, Blitzkrieg started to explain to his son the true reason they had met tonight.

"The old boss…they are saying she is cured of madness. They are letting her go."

A shocked and stunted, "How?" was all Pinstripe could manage. The white stripes on his face seemed to pale.

Blitzkrieg shrugged and shook his head wistfully.

"When?"

"Tonight."

Pinstripe took a moment to chew on this, finding it difficult to shallow. "So, what, you saying one of us has to go get her?" he concluded after a long pause.

"No, not one of us. It has to be you," Krieg told him, though he didn't say why. He thought it better that Pinstripe not know the Shadowbolts had specifically asked him to do the deed. This was _her_, after all. The don of dons. The boss of bosses. In the eyes of her underlings she was larger than life—less a pony and more a goddess of mischief. And should that goddess require appeasing in the form of a living sacrifice, which was often the case when she was upset, then it was better to feed her the lowest of the low.

Pinstripe was the natural choice. He was young, hungry, resourceful, and above all, expendable. He could get this one right, really knock it out of the park—or he could strike out and find himself belly up in a puddle of his own blood. It didn't matter. Pinstripe didn't matter. Maybe he did to Blitzkrieg, but not to the Shadowbolts or anypony else. He was nopony from nowhere. Just one more loser in a city that's full of them.

And she…the old boss…she was the entire city in microcosm. The walking, talking, sinning, embodiment of the shortcomings of weak minds and cowardly hearts. She was everything Krieg hated about Manehattan, and just thinking about her made him long for his old home across the eastern sea.

But she mattered. Like the rising sun or the moon pulling at the tide, she was not something that could be ignored or mediated. She was a disease, a plague on this city, spreading and infecting everything she touched.

"I am sorry son. Is out of my hooves," Blitzkrieg intoned.

"Forget about it, Kriegy. It's nothing. It's no big deal," said Pinstripe. Except it was a big deal. He was being fed to the meanest dog in the junkyard, and his so-called father was just standing by and letting it happen.

Pinstripe rose from his seat with a laugh. It was a hollow sound that hurt at the top of his throat. The Shadowbolts, he thought, sneering inwardly. They were nothing but old fools lounging on their false thrones. Making decisions. Casting judgments. They were all so funny to him. They didn't know if the old boss would kill whomever they sent for her; they were just afraid. They were cowardly, superstitious ponies who jumped at shadows and still believed in things that went bump in the night. And to think they looked down on him. Refused to respect him, to even bother learning his name.

But they knew her name, didn't they? They gave it to her. They had given her many. The Clown Princess of Crime. The Mare who Laughs. The _Prankster_…

Rising as well, Blitzkrieg instructed Pinstripe to take his carriage. "Have the Tongueless take you up to asylum, yes," he said, following Pinstripe to the door. "And be careful, comrade. She is more than dangerous. She _is_ danger. She is like nothing else in world."

Weakly, Blitzkrieg patted the young zebra's back. Then he returned to his table to order another drink. He would need many to get through this night.

"Heh," Pinstripe tried to laugh again, but his chuckle came out sounding like a sigh. Unlike Blitzkrieg, Pinstripe was a poor laugher.

When he touched the doorknob, a nervous tremor coursed through his limbs, causing him to halt as the gravity of his task settled on his shoulders. Heavy thoughts furrowed his brow. Then he twisted the knob and headed out into the parking lot, trotting toward the Tongueless and toward his fate as well.


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter Two_

It was dark but not quiet. The chirping of crickets and the rustling of autumn leaves surrounded Pinstripe—a veritable chorus of night sounds, skillfully orchestrated by the moon goddess Luna, or perhaps, by the now distant city itself. He stood beside his parked carriage, staring up at the ivory towers that comprised Manehattan's asylum for the criminally insane.

Though it was considered one of the oldest buildings in the city, the asylum wasn't actually in Manehattan. It had been built on the outskirts of Hollow Shades, a sleepy village just west of Manehattan that was nestled in the center of a dense wood.

Manehattan's founders believed that during the era of Discord's reign, weary travelers found refuge from the constant cannonade of madness here in the forest that surrounded Hollow Shades. According to ancient Equestrian myth, this forest was the only place in the entire world never touched by Discord's power. Legend tells that during the Days of Discord a powerful spell-caster—the rumored apprentice of Clover the Clever, renowned student of the peerless Starswirl the Bearded—imbued these woods with special properties that staved off madness. It was here that the fabled unicorn chose to build the village of Hollow Shades as a sanctuary from the wrath of the chaos lord; and it was here also that the original Manehattanites chose to erect their asylum for mentally disturbed, in hopes that the magic of this place would heal the broken minds of all who entered its gates.

Feeling bored, Pinstripe let his gaze wander down the stretch of road that had led him to this eerie place. It was a dirt road, flanked on both sides by dense woods. A great deal of the forest had been cleared away to make room for the construction of the asylum, though the cluster of buildings seemed to emerge from the woods as naturally as any tree or shrub. It stood darker than a tomb; there were no lamps to line a road so far from the city. The only light came from the pair of lanterns mounted on the back of Pinstripe's carriage, and from Luna's morose half-moon.

After ten minutes of this bored waiting, a dark shape approaching from the asylum caught Pinstripe's unprepared eye, startling him.

It wasn't fear that tightened his stomach as he watched the silhouetted figure approach the iron gate, its mane or tail or long overcoat trailing ghost-like in the gusting wind. He wasn't flooded with feelings of terror, but with a heightened sense of discomfort.

The shadowy figure moved with a distinct, almost calculated, wobble. It staggered toward the gate intently, and seemed to make a point of stumbling every few steps. As it neared, its features began emerging, its veneer of mystery made plain in the lanterns' glow.

Now Pinstripe could see that the phantom was only a pony, a mare, judging her size and stature. His eyes were drawn to those clumsy hooves that carried her so precariously, and as she neared, he saw the thick leather gloves on her front hooves, as well as the worn boots on her back legs. The first shocks of her mane caught the light, giving Pinstripe an eyeful of the tangled pink mess atop her head. This surprised him. He acutely remembered Blitzkrieg telling him that the boss's mane was long and straighter than a razor's edge.

When she reached the gate, she stopped and shielded her face. At first Pinstripe thought she was giving her eyes time to adjust to the light. However, when she resumed her skillful staggering, moving on three legs now, he realized she wasn't protecting her eyes from the sting of the lanterns' glow. No, she was hiding her face from him.

He took a step forward to meet her, and she made a harsh, blood-freezing sound that halted the zebra in his tracks. With wide eyes and raised brow, he stood as rigid as a plank, waiting, for what he didn't know.

She mimicked him, freezing ramrod straight as well. The two of them held this strange reflective stance for several seconds, neither budging an inch, both holding their breath.

And then she started laughing.

"Hehehehehe—sorry, did I scare you?" Her voice surprised him more than her mane. Much more. It was rich, smooth, and sugary sweet. She had a lilt he could have poured over pancakes.

"Startled me, maybe," answered Pinstripe. He straightened his tie, a little embarrassed.

"It's alright if you were scared…heh heh heh…I'm a scary pony, I'm told."

No, not scary, Pinstripe thought. Disquieting, maybe. Odd, definitely. But not scary. Pinstripe felt more awkward around her than frightened. "I'm here to…ah…pick you up, I guess," he said tentatively. "Kriegy sent me. Blitzkrieg, I mean."

She shuddered violently upon hearing Blitzkrieg's name. With fear or rage, Pinstripe didn't know; the tremor came and went too quickly to tell.

"You got a name, zebra?" she asked.

"Pinstripe."

She laughed again. "You got a name, _Stripe_."

"I just told you. It's Pinstripe."

"A zebra named Stripe?"

"_Pin_stripe," he tried again, emphasizing the "Pin".

"Stripe…" she said as if she hadn't heard him. "Heh…heh…**hehehehe**…" Her laughter began as a deep rumble at the back of her throat, before exploding into something clamorous, wet, and manic. She reeled and swayed from the force of it. Then she folded double and clutched her sides, shaking as if in great pain, laughing long and loud. The longer she laughed the less her cackling sounded like laughter. The full-breasted guffaw warped into a dry cough, until eventually she was covering her mouth and hacking as if very sick. Pinstripe moved to help her, but she stayed him with an outstretched hoof as the last of the coughs waned and died in her throat.

"Zebra named Stripe…" She breathed deeply, attempting to catch her breath. "…And I thought my jokes were bad." She stood up straight and turned her head at such an angle that her frizzy pink mane veiled her face.

Pinstripe's discomfort contorted into annoyance. The mare's laughter conjured in him memories of his youth: the childhood he had spent in the slums being picked on by the Trottingham hooligans that lived in the shantytowns west of Discord's Kitchen. He recalled their taunts, heard them in his memory as if those schoolyard bullies were here now.

_What's black and white and red all over_, they often jeered before dragging Pinstripe to the playground restroom, where they proceeded to beat him senseless and leave him facedown in toilet full of red water. They pounded him, stole his money, spat on him, insulted his parents, his race—but nothing stung him like their laughter. It was a sound that he loathed. A sound that still haunted his nightmares to this day—and this pony…this mangy thing with the sweet voice and the tangled mane…her laugh tore into his heart with claws. It peeled away the ugly black scabs that marred his essence, opening old wounds.

Anger seized every muscle in his body, every fiber of his being. For a moment he forgot who she was and started toward her with intent to do harm.

Then, a moment after that, Pinstripe took a calming breath that ended the rage rising in him. He was not a colt anymore. The bullies and the laughter still infuriated him, but now he knew better than to wear that anger on his sleeve. Anger was a form of power, he had learned, and if one could anger his enemy than one held some degree of power over said enemy. Pinstripe hated being laughed at, but he hated being manipulated much, much more.

"And what about you?" he said after regaining his composure. "You got a name, _Prankster_?"

The pink mare twisted her head, giving Pinstripe a view of the other side of her mane. Now he wasn't sure if she was hiding her face or looking for something.

"That's _The Prankster_ to the likes a you, ya mook," she said playfully, twisting her sweet voice so that it sounded like the gangsters Pinstripe had seen in movies when he was a kid. He still had a soft spot for those old films, with their shameless and often silly glorifications of the gang lifestyle. Despite himself, and the moment, he laughed the Prankster's gag.

"Hey, that's pretty good," he said.

She smiled behind her shield of pink mane, still refusing to show her face. "No, no, no, that's no good at all," she said. "The Prankster—that's just what the papers call me. You can all me…Pinks…" She said the name ponderously, as if it had come to her in the moment, and she were using it for the very first time.

"Pinks?" Pinstripe echoed. He wasn't sure he liked this name any better.

"Pinks and Sripe… Stripe and Pinks…" she said slowly, testing how the names sounded beside each other.

"Ah…Pink Stripes…?" Pinstripe tried carefully, perhaps hoping that playing along with this "Pinks" character would better aid him in understanding her odd behavior.

"Hehehehe—another bad joke. We're really slaying the audience tonight," she giggled, looking all around as she moved closer to Pinstripe. "Yes—Pink Stripes! That's what they'll call our act. Ho ho, we'll knock 'em dead, you and me!"

Pinstripe noticed that Pinks was searching for something. He looked around too but there wasn't much to see. Nothing but nearly invisible night-black crows perched on tree branches and miles of empty road that evaporated into darkness in both directions.

And the asylum. Somehow Pinstripe had forgotten it was there. Perhaps this was because the ancient collection of white walls, darkened corridors, and flickering light fixtures had somehow walked through its own gates in the shape of this pink pony. She wasn't terribly unpleasant, but Pinstripe had decided she was undoubtedly mad.

Remembering now that it was still there, Pinstripe looked up at the asylum and wondered which was crazier: the madmare, or the madmare who had set this lunatic free?

When his gaze returned to Pinks, he noticed she was still looking around and being careful to keep her face hidden.

"Is something wrong with—"

"My face," Pinks snapped sharply. She turned toward him but kept her eyes and mouth covered with her foreleg. "If Blitzkrieg sent you, I assume it's in the trunk."

Pinks marched past Pinstripe, who followed as she circled the carriage once, then again before stopping at the trunk. She opened a latch on the back of the carriage and swung the trunk lid upwards. Pinstripe watched her rummage around in the trunk, and he heard her giggle as she removed a plastic container of some kind. It was white, plain, unlabeled, and shaped like a jar. Pinks twisted the lid, and then dabbed her gloved hoof inside the nondescript container. Pinstripe saw that it was full of a white cream. Makeup, he figured. He peered over Pinks' shoulder and into the trunk, and saw that there were other containers, spray-cans, and something that looked like a stick of lipstick.

Pinks began rubbing her face with the cream, but stopped after applying only a little. "You mind," she growled in a new, knotted voice that made Pinstripe jump. He looked away. Then he slunk off to the front of the carriage where the Tongueless waited with animal-like patience to be given the order to return home. As Pinstripe neared them, the Tongueless greeted him in their way. Both snorted and lowered their heads, welcoming the zebra to pet them. They were mares: one an earth pony and the other a pegasus. Pinstripe petted the pegasus.

"There's a good girl," he cooed, scratching her behind the ear. He reached into his coat and produced a sugar cube, which he then fed to the mare. She chewed clumsily without the aid of a tongue and neighed contently, though she couldn't properly taste her treat.

Of all the Tongueless owned by Blitzkrieg, Pinstripe was most fond of this grey-coated pegasus mare. He didn't know her name. The Tongueless lost their names when they lost their tongues, and Pinstripe hadn't known her while she was still working for Krieg.

The Tongueless were ex-Shadowbolts, members of the gang who had worked for Blitzkrieg. That is, until they made a mistake: ruined a hit, stole from him, betrayed him, or just proved themselves too incompetent to be trusted. As punishment for failing the Shadowbolts, Blitzkrieg had them sent to a unicorn named Temporal who used her magic to lobotomize them. Afterwards, the nearly brain-dead ponies became the loyal, unthinking slaves of anypony who held their reigns. Krieg mostly used them for drawing carts because their clumsiness made them poor maids or servers of food and drink.

Pinstripe didn't like the idea his fellow equines, even if they were ponies, being turned into Tongueless. Not because he cared for them personally, but because he found the sight of mares and stallions behaving like common animals unnerving.

Still, he was always kind to them, especially to this grey-coated pegasus. She had a charm about her that he couldn't resist, with her lazy yellow eyes that never seemed to focus on the same thing at the same time. Krieg had noticed his fondness for the grey mare and once offered to give her to Pinstripe as something of a sex slave. Pinstripe had refused. Being a ruthless criminal wanted for a veritable laundry list of heinous crimes was one thing, but taking advantage of a brain-dead mare…. No—even a scumbag as malicious as Pinstripe had standards. And wouldn't mating with one of them be like mating with an animal? The thought unnerved him; most everything about the Tongueless did.

But what bothered him most was the actual removal of the tongue. Lobotomizing them and forcing them to be slaves was heinous enough, but cutting out their tongues…it didn't seem to have any purpose. As far as Pinstripe could tell, it was just one more random act of cruelty heaped atop the others.

"Your boss Blitzkrieg tried to have me made into one of those things." Pinstripe heard Pinks' voice come from behind him. It had lost much of its sweetness now and resonated with something new and dangerous. "It was a long time ago, back when I still had a sense of humor. Sometimes I wish ol' Temporal had lobotomized me. Then I'd be all smiles all the time, not a care in the world… Not that I have any now. Hee hee hee hee hee…"

She let out a deep, humorless laugh. It had a tumbling quality to it, Pinstripe thought, and seemed to roll like an ocean wave. The zebra turned around and quickly found himself staring at Pinks. No…now he was staring at The Prankster, at the subject of so many Manehattan horror stories.

Her pink face was painted pale white, except around her eyes where a pair of inky black circles disrupted the white motif. A sloppily painted teardrop decorated her left cheek—but Pinstripe hardly noticed it, or the tinge of green now coloring the ends of her tangled mane.

He was busy staring at her scars.

"TA-DAAAAAA!" she shouted, jumping up on her hind legs and spreading her gloved hooves in a grandiose gesture. She twirled inelegantly, nearly tripping over her unlaced boots, before returning to all fours. "What do you think? I do have to look my best for _her_, you know. She's always out there. Watching. Watching me right now."

"W-who is she?'" asked Pinstripe, trying without success to tear his gaze from the mare's painted scars. They began at the corners of her mouth, and her intensity red lipstick made them look like fresh wounds, as if she were bleeding at this very moment. Outlined by the dim light, they could have been climbing up her face, toward her ears, or trailing down to meet her jawline. She might have been wearing a permanent smile or a permanent frown; Pinstripe wasn't sure which.

"Who is who?" asked Pinks, tilting her head in confusion and then looking up at the sky.

"Who is _She_?" Pinstripe tried again. "You said she was watching us."

Pinks' gaze dropped suddenly as if weighted, and Pinstripe saw for the first time that she was the owner of two beautifully haunting—or, perhaps haunting beautiful—blue eyes. They were a light shade of cerulean, all the more pronounced by the dark rings of paint that seemed to cage them. Both eyes were blue beehives of activity. They pondered and observed and focused and scanned and daydreamed—and without the black circles to keep them in place, Pinstripe worried they might fly from her face in search of new stimulus in the woods or down the dirt road.

"Who is she?" Pinks echoed, her voice carrying a note of innocent curiosity. "Who is…hehehe…heh heh heh...**WHAAAA**HAHAHAHAHA!" She erupted into a storm of unbridled laughter. This laugh was new. It had a rapid spinning quality to it, like a cyclone, whirling and sucking everything into itself. "Why—haha…hoho…heh…heh…heeeee…why would I know that?" She moved closer and threw a foreleg around Pinstripe's neck, making his whole body go stiff. He trembled. His heart slammed against his chest. His lungs tightened.

"I think I like you, Racing Stripe. You're a funny zebra…" She pulled him closer so that they were cheek-to-cheek. How strange, thought the zebra, that at a distance she had seemed so harmless, almost foolish. Perhaps her power was in contact, for now that she was touching him he understood why the silly old stallion feared her.

She stroked his mane without love or lust. Then, in a pink blur movement, she grabbed the zebra by the neck and slammed him into the side of wagon, pinning him, strangling him with powerful hooves. "But if you don't stop starring at me by the time I count to three, I'm going to break your neck!"

Startled, the pair of Tongueless at the wagon's helm rose up on their hind legs, kicking and neighing.

In the span of one second, maybe two, Pinstripe watched The Prankster's painted expression mutate from gleeful to livid. Her active eyes seemed to shake in her head, as if trying to free themselves from the black circles. She brought her muzzle close to his, staring at his face, into his eyes, watching his cheeks change color, watching him die by degrees.

A frown, Pinstripe thought in the last corner of his mind that wasn't screaming in witless terror. Her scars—they definitely formed a permanent frown.

"One…" she counted, twisting Pinstripe's neck, tightening her grip.

"Two…" He let out an oxygen-starved gurgle, screwed his eyes shut and tried to turn away before Pinks reached the number three. "There's a good zebra," she said brightly, releasing her hold and patting him on the head.

Pinstripe let out a gasp, shocked by the sudden flood of cool air filling his lungs. She was strong. Pinstripe knew that earth ponies were renowned for their physical strength, but Pinks was alarmingly powerful for a mare her size. Instinctively, he tugged at his shirt collar and adjusted his tie. Catching his breath proved difficult, and when he was breathing easy again, Pinstripe was careful not to look directly at Pinks.

The flustered zebra opened the carriage door for his new boss. "We should probably get out of—"

"It's the scars, isn't it," interrupted Pinks, flashing her new friend a knowing smile. "The reason you were staring. It's the scars right? Tell me, do you have a knife, Awning Stripe?"

The zebra nodded, indicating that he did.

"Give it here and I'll show you how I got them."

Pinstripe started sweating. "Sorry, boss, but we really should get going. It's…ah…late and—"

"Give. Me. The. Knife." Her voice was murderous, each word a stab in Pinstripe's ears.

The zebra stood paralyzed between the open door and the mare's outstretched hoof. He swallowed hard and reached into his overcoat, searching it for the handle of his butterfly knife. When he found it, he thought hard about using it on the pink mare. But then, what would he tell Blitzkrieg and the other Shadowbolts when he returned without The Prankster? He could lie and tell them some rival gang knew about her release and was lying in wait for her to leave the asylum. He could say they were ambushed and that The Prankster was killed. It wasn't an unbelievable story; Pinks certainly had enough enemies. Hell, would Krieg even miss this painted lunatic? He was elated the day he learned of her arrest. Was there anything to worry about, Pinstripe wondered, as he pulled the blade from his coat one centimeter at a time.

"Hurry now, we don't have all night," said Pinks.

Again, Pinstripe's eyes fixed on her scars and he recalled how quickly the gloved hooves had found his neck. Would he even make it back to Blitzkrieg? Could he pull the blade fast enough to cut her, let alone kill her? Or would those strong, agile limbs of hers snake around his throat again and finish him for good? The slight upturn in her cheeks seemed to ask these questions and more. A sly smirk had appeared on her face, challenging him. Daring him.

"There's a good zebra," said Pinks, as Pinstripe passed her knife without fuss. She flipped the blade open and bit down on the handle, gripping it between her teeth. Then she looked around one more time—searching again for _her_ or whatever apparition her deranged mind had conjured. After nearly a minute of this aimless searching, Pinstripe summoned his courage and attempted to reason with the unreasonable mare.

"You're wasting my time and yours, boss. There ain't nothing out there," he said. "Let's go already. Kriegy's waiting for us to—Hey! Hey, what are you doing, you psychopath!"

Pinks ignored Pinstripe's sudden outburst. She wandered to edge of the road where the woods began and knelt. Fresh blood dripped from the new, self-inflicted wound on her foreleg where she had cut herself moments ago. Humming pleasantly to herself, she extended the bleeding limb, dangling it as if to bait some unseen predator.

"Here boy," she said, speaking clearly despite the knife in her mouth. The blade hung comically from the corner of her mouth, bobbing as she spoke but refusing to fall, like a fat cigar in the mouth of cartoon character. "Heeere boy. Come to mamma. Come and get it."

"What are you…?" Pinstripe's voice trailed off. His eyes shifted toward the line were the edge of the road ended and the wildlife began. That line…it seemed to separate civility from nature, sanity from madness, but on which side of the spectrum he stood, Pinstripe didn't know. But he needed to know. Suddenly, he needed to know very badly. So he watched the pink mare, and he listened carefully—at first to the wind, and then to the chirping crickets, and then to the cawing crows, and then to the hammering in his own chest—and then there was silence, deep and invasive—or was it loud and obtrusive?—or was it even silence at all? It may have been something else entirely. Something much more esoteric, like the first inaudible cracks of a sane mind beginning to break.

A swift moving figure rustled the undergrowth.

What happened next happened fast. Pinstripe heard the growl of a starving animal. He saw the diamond dog leap from the shrubs that hid it—leap at Pinks—its maw opened wide, its teeth gleaming yellow in the low light.

And he saw the knife flash, a brilliant silver streak of violence that tore into the leaping dog's stomach, cutting a crimson swath across the night.

But before any of that—before the growl and the leap and the knife—Pinstripe saw the Prankster's tail twitch. He saw a tremor run from her dock to the tip of her tail, and after that her movements were more than just fluid and deadly precise. They were anticipatory. Pinks had known the dog was there, Pinstripe realized. She'd known when it would pounce and how fast, maybe even how high, and she had used that clairvoyant knowledge to time her counterstrike.

When it was over, Pinstripe rushed to her side.

Pinks stood above the diamond dog, staring down at it with something like sympathy in her active blue eyes. The animal lay on its back, whining as blood gushed from a long, horizontal gash in its stomach.

She spat the knife from her mouth. "Oh there, there, you poor dear." She crouched down and lifted the animal's head from the ground, cradling it in her forelegs. "It's okay, it's okay. Ooohhhh, sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh, you're gonna be fine."

The dog looked up at her, its eyes unfocused, its long tongue hanging limp from its mouth. Then it let out a short yip as Pinks twisted its head, snapping the animal's neck easily and without fuss. She shut the dog's eyes and gently laid its head down on the ground.

"What did I say about staring?" she said, glowering at Pinstripe who was now standing over her, wearing an expression that was at once appalled, frightened and deeply impressed.

"Sorry," he said, quickly looking away. "How did you do that?"

"Do what?"

"You knew the dog was there. You knew when it was going to pounce. When it—"

"It probably wasn't alone," Pinks said thoughtfully, once again cutting Pinstripe short. "You're right about that much."

"I'm right about what? What are you talking about now?"

"I agree, it's definitely one of Blood Orange's little mongrels," she said, clearly not listening to Pinstripe at all. "See how its ribs are showing? That crazy stallion—hehehe—he likes to keep his dogs hungry. Thinks it makes them better hunters."

"What? Stop it. Stop rambling and explain it to me!" Pinstripe almost shouted. Pinks glared at him and he shut up quick. Where that sudden surge of bravery had come from, he didn't know. Perhaps he had been caught up in the moment, enamored and thrilled by the quick kill. Perhaps he was losing his mind. It was a scary thought. One night on a dirt road with this lunatic and he was already going batty.

"Blood Orange. He's an old playmate of mine. And this,"—she grabbed the dog's tongue and starting playing with it, stretching it and then bobbing it up and down as if it were a cat's toy—"this is—woohoo—woooo—hehehe—ha ha ha ha ha!—this is just a warning! There are more coming! More watching!"

Abruptly, Pinks released the tongue. She stood up. Her tail twitched again. "Chapter two is almost over. We should go now," she said, her voice suddenly deadpan. "I'll ride shotgun."

A black suited stallion waited for Pinstripe's carriage to pull away before stepping out of the woods. He strode to where his pet laid dead at the edge of the road. His deep maroon mane and tail swayed in the wind as he knelt to examine the felled dog. Sharp eyes noted the length of the dog's wound. It stretched horizontally from one end of the animal's abdomen to the other, a thin red cummerbund that cut a semicircle around its midsection. Smiling inwardly, the stallion slid a gloved hoof between the folds of broken skin.

"My, my," he intoned, "two inches of penetration. And with a horizontal slash."

He parted the dog's lips, checking its teeth for any traces of flesh, blood, or hair. Then he checked the animal's nails for the same. He found none. His pet hadn't so much as scratched her.

But the blood here on the dirt road, not all of it was the dog's.

The stallion's chin fell lightly upon the dirt, and he sniffed at the speckles of blood suspiciously. His tongue, quick and snake-like, flicked, tasting the red-stained ground. After a moment of thought, the stallion was sure that some of the blood was in fact hers.

His eyes found the dog again, fixing on the ribs that showed beneath the animal's fur. She must have injured herself, he concluded, giving the dog a whiff of blood to lure it from hiding. She'd used its hunger against it. Clever.

"You're as dangerous as ever," he mused aloud, his inward grin broadening. Nearly finished gauging the damage, he rolled the dog over and ran a hoof along the its neck, feeling a break in the vertebrae. "But why the quick death? Why the show of mercy? Unless…"

He stroked the back of his own neck, remembering a night like this one when The Prankster had done to him what she did to his pet. Of course, unlike his pet, he had survived the injury to his neck that night. Though, just barely.

"A message, perhaps? But no joke? No prank? Are you finally starting to take this seriously?"

The inward smile breached his thin lips, becoming an outward grin. He didn't laugh. He wasn't like The Prankster. He wasn't like any number of the countless cackling madmares that made up Manehattan's gallery of rouges. He took his work seriously. He took himself seriously. Very seriously. And it seemed that the state of things in Manehattan had changed with the release of the Prankster. It seemed she was beginning to take things seriously as well.


End file.
